


trying and failing (and you, i've held on to, because i want to)

by touchszn



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Bodyswap, Hockey, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Being Able To Say It, Pining and Angst with a Happy Ending, Pre and Post Break-up, Reconciliation, The Inherent Tragedy of Incompatible Love Languages, figure skating, important conversations had whilst playing yugioh, the inherent homoeroticism of looking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25613164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/touchszn/pseuds/touchszn
Summary: Mingyu doesn’t want to look. But the treacherous part of his brain that craves the pain that comes with acknowledgement makes him anyway.Seungkwan’s helmet is off, his hair is wild and pointing in all directions. He’s sweaty and out of breath. But he’s looking right at Mingyu. And Mingyu is looking back.(Mingyu switches bodies with his ex's best friend. He learns a lot about the value of putting feelings into words.)
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Kim Mingyu
Comments: 30
Kudos: 111





	trying and failing (and you, i've held on to, because i want to)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emojungkook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emojungkook/gifts).



> long time no see lmfao.... how yall been
> 
> a few things:
> 
> this was originally for match point, a svt sports fic fest which can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SVTSportsFest/profile)! be sure to check it out in november when posting begins if u like seventeen and Sports
> 
> this is set in a universe where both figure skating and hockey are super popular in korea. definitely not realistic but listen . i needed it to be this way
> 
> this combines my two interests: boogyu and hockey. god bless. thanks karli for this prompt i love u to the moon and back for real. u are an angel and obviously i wrote this for u
> 
> title half from run ii you by frenship
> 
> [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5xZgM0TB1WJ8Ha9ZIQAptm?si=1lS8DNzqSPaNekGG3ahlnQ)'s a playlist that more or less dictated the way i ended up writing this fic if you like that kind of thing
> 
> finally, hiii quinn. im so glad i met u

now

When it’s over, when Mingyu’s finally back in his own body and Seungkwan stops smiling, it doesn’t feel anything especially like a victory.

On one hand, yeah, it’s great. Mingyu isn’t stuck in a body that isn’t his anymore, he’s got privacy and his own apartment back, he can take a breath like nothing is compressing his lungs.

For a bit there it was almost like the universe was balanced in a way it hadn’t been before. Like they’d jumped, inexplicably, into a timeline where things were perfect, where Seungkwan didn’t hate him like he does usually. And now, well, Seungkwan’s stopped smiling. 

They still talk, sure. Seungkwan still says _hello_ when Mingyu hops on the ice before practice, but it’s not the same. It’s laced with a kind of vestigial politeness that serves no purpose except to make Mingyu feel wholly inadequate and unworthy. He holds a secret. He keeps it close to his chest like letting it fly free will kill him.

The first skate back, Mingyu doesn’t look up. Seokmin, for his part at least, still smiles at Jeonghan because _they talked about it._ Mingyu laces his skates and asks himself why it’s so hard to open his mouth. 

“Just be a big boy. Go talk to him, I’m sure he misses you,” Jeonghan says because he, too, is sick of the forlorn looks and constant moping. He says it like he is not fully aware that Mingyu’s modus operandi is to never reach out first when he’s been hurt. 

“That’ll just make things worse,” Mingyu responds. His eyes never really leave his own fingers, still too transfixed with the concept of his own flesh to stop.

Jeonghan rolls his eyes gratuitously. “Your funeral.”

Mingyu will probably be going to his grave with these regrets. But it’s better than admitting he might need Seungkwan more than Seungkwan ever needed him.

It’s 7 o’clock and Mingyu has a short program routine to practice but all he can think about is how it felt to open his mouth, finally, and let his voice rise buoyantly out of his chest. 

\--

during

Mingyu doesn’t even realize he’s concussed until he’s being forced into a small room with a rag for all the blood and a doctor he doesn’t recognize.

“Hi, Seokmin,” the doctor says. “Can you tell me what year it is?”

“What?” Mingyu responds even though he knows that’s not really an acceptable answer in this situation. 

It’s just... What? Everything is a sort of hazy that Mingyu’s only ever really experienced after a long nap. The world seems overbright, the lights and reflections suddenly harsh and red-rimmed-- the doctor is really only just visible between the spots that have appeared in his vision. And he just called him Seokmin. 

“Hey, stay with me,” the doctor says, voice leaning toward something urgent. “Do you remember what you were doing before you came in here?”

Mingyu does not remember. That’s when he knows for sure something’s wrong

\--

Mingyu doesn’t know a lot about Seokmin and it’s not out of a lack of interest, exactly. More like… a lack of time. 

After Seungkwan ostensibly dumped him, it seemed a little inappropriate to continue making buddy-buddy with the entire hockey team. Mingyu pulled back pretty quickly, deleted numbers, stopped responding to texts. Which was fine, at the time, but now that Mingyu is having to pretend like he’s never been anyone but Seokmin in his entire life it’s a little regrettable. 

_Just, um, we both have concussions, right? That’s a great excuse. Just don’t overdo it. I don’t want insane medical bills when I’m back, alright? You’ll be paying for them._ Seokmin had whispered at him as they were walking back to the locker room from the doctor’s office. _I’m usually with Seungkwan right now. Just wait for him by his car-- big silver one with all the stickers on the back, hard to miss. But I guess you know that already, don’t you?_ The smile slipped off Seokmin-as-Mingyu’s face for just a moment as Seokmin seemed to remember who he was talking to. _And here--_ Seokmin handed Mingyu his phone back and gestured for his own. _Text me your address and I’ll make it somehow. You take the 22, right?_

And so here Mingyu is, standing beside his ex’s car in a body that is not his own, hoping against all hope that no one can tell he’s about to start crying. 

“Hyung!” Mingyu hears Seungkwan's voice from across the parking lot. “I thought they told you to rest!”

Very few things could have adequately prepared Mingyu for the experience of Seungkwan speaking to him with genuine care in his voice again. He takes a deep breath, attempts to open his mouth to say something like what Seokmin would say. _I am resting_ maybe or, _I’ve been waiting for you this whole time._ But then again, wouldn’t he say the same things?

Apparently silence is just as acceptable as speech because Seungkwan just shrugs and goes, “Get in, loser.” 

So he does. And even just driving with Seungkwan is something so familiar it burns Mingyu from the toes up. 

Mingyu’s eyes wander; from Seokmin’s knees to his thighs to the atoms that make up his being. He’s got these hands that go on forever, he’s got these knuckles that look just like Mingyu’s if he squints enough, if he keeps the tears gathering at the edges of his vision from falling. 

“You okay?” Seungkwan asks, his fingertips dancing delicately across the skin at Mingyu’s wrist. 

“No,” Mingyu says truthfully. “My head hurts.”

And Mingyu’s not looking, but he knows Seungkwan’s pouting like he usually does when he’s worried. 

“When we get home I’m making you dinner and you’re laying on the couch and not moving, deal?”

Staring out the window at the stands that line the roadways is not helping Mingyu do anything but develop a sudden and intense craving for fresh produce. “Deal.”

\--

before

Mingyu’s ceiling looks new every time he opens his eyes. Like he’s been transported somewhere, like the whole room has shifted around him. 

Seungkwan, though, he looks the same. And today they bide their time in bed, too bone tired to do anything but breathe in tandem. The window is open and Mingyu can predict the tone of voice Seungkwan will use to scold him about it: something high and pouty, something more concerned with principle than practicality. 

It is then that he has a terrifying thought. He thinks that he might be content to do this forever. To wake up next to Seungkwan and listen to him complain about the sun and the sheets and the AC. He thinks it’s possible he might not ever want anything else.

In the morning light, Mingyu watches Seungkwan’s eyelids flutter open and he realizes this might be what love is. 

Seungkwan, though, kind of just looks like he’s seen a ghost. 

If Mingyu were smart, he might have said it then. If he weren’t so bad at this, he might have been able to reach out and trace the line of Seungkwan’s jaw. Might have been able to kiss him like it meant something. 

“Breakfast?” Is all he says instead and Seungkwan just stares at him blankly. 

“I think I’m just gonna go,” Seungkwan says after a pause. 

He’s not smiling like he usually does. Mingyu finds himself frowning in return. 

“Oh,” Mingyu breathes. 

“Yeah. Oh.”

\--

Seungkwan stops calling, which is fine. They weren’t… They weren’t dating, at least not officially.

And it’s not like he can say that he doesn’t know what he did wrong, because he might have an inkling. The week after he took Seungkwan to the park had been bad. Seungkwan had expected a response and Mingyu had given him the front end of a camera lens. Classy. Cowardly. 

It’s fine, really. When Mingyu looks, Seungkwan seems happy. He’s laughing again, he’s smiling and singing on the ice and Mingyu hasn’t seen him cry about it, not even once. 

Seokmin still texts sometimes, but Mingyu stops answering around the same time Seungkwan does. It’s probably better for the both of them if the split is clean, if he cuts himself out of Seungkwan’s life completely-- because it’s clear he never needed him anyway. 

In the end, all Mingyu did was make him miserable and he’s moved on. 

Which is fine.

He just stops looking. 

\--

during

“Did you hear?” Seungkwan asks, voice purposefully light and inherently suspicious. “Mingyu hit his head today, too. Right before you did.”

From behind, Mingyu can see the way Seungkwan’s shoulders come up closer to his ears very clearly. He’s cooking something, soybean paste stew, maybe, and his head is tilted just the slightest bit to the side. 

“Did he?” Mingyu responds. “I hope he’s alright.”

And even while flying completely blind it seems Mingyu can manage a simple conversation better in Seokmin’s body better than he could in his own. 

“Yeah,” Seungkwan says, clears his throat loudly. “Me too.”

They fall into an easy silence. Mingyu closes his eyes and thinks up scheme after scheme to get himself back in his own body. The problem is that this feels too much like what they used to have, except Seungkwan never used to cook before. He used to drag Mingyu to roadside stands to pick out fresh fruit and laugh as mandarin juice dripped down Mingyu’s fingers and onto the ground. Used to make him buy bok choy for salads he never made. 

It’s possible Mingyu thinks about Seungkwan more than Seungkwan has ever thought about him. Which is definitely pathetic but also not something that is so easy to handle, especially when icetime is so hard to come by and the school’s small contingency of figure skaters has such a good thing going with the hockey team. 

In the universe Mingyu has crafted in his head, Seungkwan wastes no breath on him. A year has passed. They should both be over it. Reality, however, is unforgiving. 

“You know what I can’t get over?” Seungkwan says, voice filling up the apartment this time. “How he pretends like he didn’t break my fucking heart.”

Mingyu stops breathing, just for a moment. 

It’s a wonder Seungkwan isn’t giving himself third degree burns with the way he begins slinging pans around. 

“Like, he just stops calling, stops making eye contact and for what? He never told me fucking anything. Fuck, we weren’t even dating! And he… seriously, every time I hop on the ice it’s like he can’t wait to get off. I think… I don’t even know what it would feel like to love someone. But… I liked him a lot.”

Seungkwan’s still cooking like he hasn’t just taken a wrecking ball to Mingyu’s chest. His only saving grace is that Seungkwan doesn’t seem to expect any sort of response.

“I know I talk about this all the time, I’m sorry, just… He broke my heart and he acts like I hurt him somehow, like I’m the one at fault. And maybe I am! All I can do is be mean to him now. I’m so afraid that if I stop he’ll worm his way back in, you know? Like… He’ll be able to hurt me again. I can’t do it, not… I just can’t do it again.”

Mingyu’s lost the feeling in his fingertips. He presses on each one individually just to check-- all static. 

“He didn’t even break up with me, hyung. I don’t know why I’m still so upset about it. I know I’m a lot so… I get it, I guess,” Seungkwan says. “Anyway. food’s almost ready. Sorry. I shouldn’t have raised my voice earlier.” 

Seokmin would probably say _It’s okay_ or _It’s fine_ but all Mingyu can do is keep his breathing even so he doesn’t say something disastrous like _I didn’t mean to hurt you_ or _I think I might have been in love._

Seungkwan brings the soybean paste stew over not too long after and he smiles at Mingyu and laughs like they’re friends and it’s… a lot. Mingyu doesn’t want to know what this would turn into if Seungkwan knew the truth. 

Looking at his phone hurts. Mingyu’s vision is still not quite right from the fall, but he’s able to type out a quick message through the haze while Seungkwan is in the kitchen. 

**TO: Lee Seokmin (Hockey)**

We can’t tell Seungkwan. 

\--

after

Mingyu’s axels might actually be getting worse with practice, somehow. 

He can hear his coach chastising him from the bench-- something about pre-rotating or over extending, but none of it is making any sense to him in the moment. 

It used to be like breathing: edge, jump, rotate, finish. Now it’s all kind of jumbled in his head. 

Seungkwan used to tease him when he had trouble with jumps. He’d tease the wobble in Mingyu’s knee or the blowouts he’d have when taking a turn too hard. Now, he just watches silently from the other side of the ice. 

“Maybe you should go back to bunny hops,” Jeonghan jokes as he skates by, limbs held up in a textbook spiral. 

“Maybe you should take your skate blades and shove them up your ass,” Mingyu snaps back, but there’s not any real heat behind it. Just a thin veneer of spite. 

When Seungkwan isn’t looking, Mingyu catches glances of him. He’s doing a drill with a set of cones, he’s passing the puck, hard, to Chan, he’s scoring on Junhui and yelling triumphantly. He looks like himself.

Mingyu used to attend hockey games. He had names for all the looks Seungkwan would send opposing players. Now they’re just all the different ways Seungkwan looks at him. 

“Did you need something?” Seungkwan yells, suddenly staring straight back at Mingyu through his visor. 

“No,” Mingyu yells back, hyper aware of his coach’s eyes on his back. “Just thinking.”

Normally that would be the end of it. Mingyu would skate away, neck and ears red with embarrassment and Seungkwan would go back to practicing hits on Seungcheol and Joshua. This time, though, Seungkwan skates over, crosses in front of Mingyu, holds his stick between them like a barrier and says “I don’t owe you anything,” like that will solve the problem. 

It doesn’t.

Mingyu false starts three axels in a row. He goes home, chilled to the bone, still thinking about what he would have said had he been able to find his voice. 

\--

during

Seungkwan won’t let Mingyu help him with the dishes, so he spends the hour after dinner staring up at the ceiling and listening to the half-songs Seungkwan sings in the kitchen. 

“It sucks you won’t be able to play for a few weeks,” Seungkwan says when he finally makes his way over to the couch. “Did the doctor say anything specific about a timeline?”

Mingyu shakes his head. 

Another sigh. “You need to not block pucks with your head next time, hyung.”

Confusion and amnesia are symptoms of concussions so Mingyu’s response of “Is that what I did?” is nothing too out of the ordinary. 

“Yeah, dumbass. It was just practice, you really need to stop giving it your all when Soonyoung looks over.”

The fond smile on Seungkwan’s face does nothing to prepare Mingyu for the warm, damp hand Seungkwan presses to his forehead. 

“You doing okay?” Seungkwan asks. 

“Sort of,” Mingyu sputters. 

Seungkwan either doesn’t notice or doesn’t want to acknowledge the red spreading across Mingyu’s cheeks. He maneuvers Mingyu’s head so it rests comfortably in his lap-- one hand in Mingyu’s hair and the other fiddling with his phone. 

“I know this isn’t your first rodeo,” Seungkwan says, the hand in Mingyu’s hair falling into a slow rhythm. “But if you want to stay up all night again, I can stay up with you.”

Mingyu hums in response. 

“Use your words.”

“Sure,” Mingyu says, sufficiently chastised.

It is then that Mingyu begins to forget himself. Everything about spending time with Seungkwan has been familiar. Maybe it would have been easier to have switched bodies with Wonwoo or Junhui or _god_ anyone but Seungkwan’s roommate and best friend. The line between the life he’s living now and the life he had a year ago blurs. 

“Wanna play YuGiOh?” Seungkwan asks

“Sure,” Mingyu says again, just because he knows it’ll make Seungkwan mad. 

And it does, so he keeps doing it-- keeps his answers short, keeps nodding instead of giving Seungkwan anything to work with. 

It’s cute, the way Seungkwan’s face screws up when he’s displeased, the way he sticks his tongue between his teeth and cheek when he’s annoyed. Probably weird to wish that those looks were reserved for Mingyu-- they feel special, they’ve always felt special and fleeting. 

“Did the concussion give you your _annoy Seungkwan cortex_ back?” Seungkwan snaps after a few hours and all Mingyu can do is laugh and place a card in the face-down defensive position. 

“Your turn,” he says, out of breath almost with the familiarity of it all. 

“I can’t stand you,” Seungkwan says but he puts a card down to attack anyway. 

It’s like muscle memory, prodding at Seungkwan to get a reaction. Mingyu does it like he lives for it. Like he never missed a beat.

At the end of the night, Seungkwan walks away with three wins to Mingyu’s two and he looks more tired than he does victorius. 

“Alright,” Seungkwan says as the clock on the end table reads 5:45. “I’ve gotta get to workouts. You’re exempt, obviously.”

Mingyu smiles mischievously up at Seungkwan. 

“Don’t rub it in,” Seungkwan grumbles. “Try to get some sleep okay? I’m gonna go get dressed.”

The silence he leaves in his wake is not a welcome one. It becomes more like a high pitched ringing when Mingyu tilts his head just so. 

“I’ll text you,” Seungkwan throws over his shoulder as he’s pulling on his coat and unlocking the door. 

“Uh, why don’t you… not.” Mingyu grimaces at his ineptitude. 

Maybe switching phones was a bad idea. Mingyu’s own weighs heavy in his pocket.

“Right,” Seungkwan says like an epiphany. “Concussion. I’ll just see you later, okay? I had fun.”

Mingyu doesn’t know what name he might have given to the way Seungkwan looked at him then. _Grateful,_ maybe. Or _sad._

\--

after

Playing YuGiOh with Seokmin isn’t nearly as fun as playing it with Seungkwan. 

Seungkwan was way worse at it, for one. 

As Mingyu loses his third match in a row, he tries to take Seokmin’s deck when he isn’t looking. 

“That deck won’t make you a better player,” Seokmin says lightly. 

Mingyu pulls his hand back to his side slowly. “Why do I even play with you?”

“Because I’m pretty.”

The reality is probably more like _because Seungkwan made Mingyu miss it_. Made him miss mindlessly playing children’s card games in the lounge. Made him miss mandarin oranges and sticky hands more than he already did. 

Mingyu plays YuGiOh with Seokmin and Soonyoung, goes to roadside produce stands and misses Seungkwan. Misses him like a limb, like a lung. This phantom pain he carries around only serves to make him do dumber things than he was prone to doing before. 

He fires off a text to Seungkwan one Thursday after Seokmin has thoroughly destroyed him in another game of YuGiOh. It’s just a picture of the cards Seokmin used to orchestrate Mingyu’s demise. Simple. 

He gets left on read.

\--

Mingyu lands a single axel while his coach’s back is turned. He doesn’t land the second one but that can easily be attributed to the fact that seconds before he attempts it, Mingyu realizes Seungkwan is watching. Like, standing between blue lines with his head tilted staring. 

He lands the next one just fine. 

“Performance anxiety?” Jeonghan jibes as he skates by too fast for Mingyu to grab at him properly. 

“One of these days your mouth is gonna get you in a lot of trouble,” Mingyu calls and this time it feels more natural, the play fighting. 

“Promise?” Jeonghan laughs loud enough to catch the attention of the hockey players at the other end of the ice. 

Mingyu turns his back to them quickly. 

“You still haven’t talked to him?” Jeonghan’s voice shifts from playful to serious in record time. He skates a slow circle around Mingyu, crossing over and back again with ease.

This isn’t something Mingyu is comfortable talking to Jeonghan about, per se. But better him than Minghao or, god forbid, Soonyoung. 

“Not yet,” he manages after a pause. 

He stares at his skates resolutely, watching the way the blades leave lines behind in the ice where he drags them. 

“I’m not gonna give you a lecture or anything, but from what Seokmin told us when he was you, it seems like Seungkwan might need you to… take initiative. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but I think you should try.”

“And what about what I need?” Mingyu bites, the suddenness of his own vitriol taking him by surprise. _Yes, what about me?_ It says. _What about the hurt I have yet to cause?_

“I think you _need_ to look him in the eyes and tell him how you felt. I think you _need_ to remember that these things don’t just magically go away if you ignore them. And anyway. He’s looking at you again.”

Mingyu doesn’t want to look. But the treacherous part of his brain that craves the pain that comes with acknowledgement makes him anyway. 

Seungkwan’s helmet is off, his hair is wild and pointing in all directions. He’s sweaty and out of breath. But he’s looking right at Mingyu. And Mingyu is looking back. 

\--

“So,” Mingyu starts. 

“So,” Seokmin repeats. 

They’re standing in the middle of the locker room well after hours, Seokmin with his gear half-shoved into his bag and Mingyu just holding his skates by their laces. 

“If I ask you about Seungkwan, do you _have_ to tell him about it?”

Seokmin makes a face. “He’s my best friend,” he says. 

“Okay,” Mingyu sighs, swings his skates back and forth. “Well, I’m gonna ask anyway.”

Seokmin’s laughter is familiar now, something like coming home. Mingyu lets it wash over him. 

“Is he… doing okay?” 

It is not lost on Mingyu that this is the first time he’s thought to ask that question in the year since they fell apart. He’d been too scared before to even consider the answer. He’d taken everything at face value, had seen Seungkwan’s attempts at normalcy and accepted them as reality rather than what they were: a front. 

Seokmin, for his part, doesn’t acknowledge Mingyu’s lapse in judgement. “He’s… he’s okay. He’s doing okay.”

For all the courage it took to ask, Mingyu is a little disappointed in the answer. The pout his mouth forms is near-involuntary. 

“Do you think he hates me? For everything?”

Seokmin’s lips form a thin line. “Don’t tell him I told you this, but no. I know he doesn’t.”

The concept of it, of Seungkwan not hating him, is… not even something Mingyu was prepared to grapple with. He’d been prepared to hear the worst-- that Seungkwan despised him, that he never wanted to speak to him again. In the end, his own worst enemy might be the assumptions he makes about other people-- that they always act out how they feel, that they always say what they mean. 

“He just feels really deeply, you know, about everything. It’s not… entirely you. But you make him feel a lot.”

_You make him feel a lot_. 

“What does that even _mean?_ ” Mingyu blurts out.

Seokmin laughs again. “I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask.” 

Later, when Mingyu is cooking with vegetables from one of the stands he got into the habit of visiting with Seungkwan, he snaps a picture. Sends it without any text. 

He gets a reply almost immediately.

FROM: Boo 

?????

Mingyu leaves him on read. 

\--

during

Mingyu finally catches Seokmin in the locker room after all the other hockey players have hit the showers. Not that Mingyu needed another reason to escape-- their half of the room still smells of feet, anyway. Mingyu wrinkles his nose in distaste as he speedwalks conspicuously towards where the figure skaters usually sit.

“Hi, Mingyu,” Soonyoung greets, eyes bright and smile wide. 

Mingyu stops in his tracks. Looks down at his body as if something might have changed miraculously in the last few minutes. 

“No, you’re still Seokmin,” Soonyoung laughs. “He told us already. He’s a terrible liar. Also a terrible you.”

Seokmin-as-Mingyu nods resolutely from his place at Soonyoung’s side.

“It hasn’t even been a day!” Mingyu’s voice creeps way closer to a whine than he is strictly comfortable with. 

“It’s not my fault your friends are demonic!” Seokmin says, but he can’t mean it. Not when Soonyoung is practically glued to his side. 

Mingyu groans. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”

Soonyoung looks at the two of them thoughtfully, brow furrowed. “There’s an unlocked broom closet around the corner if this is some kind of sex thing.” 

They don’t end up in the broom closet because it is decidedly _not_ a sex thing. They still end up in its vicinity, though. 

“So Seungkwan,” Mingyu starts.

“Seungkwan,” Seokmin repeats. 

There’s something so strange about hearing the name in his own voice-- foreign, almost. He used to say it all the time. 

“We were talking yesterday and it was… since I’m you, he thought… he started talking about me. To me. Except he thought I was you.”

“I am aware of the situation we’re in, yes,” Seokmin teases.

“He said I broke his heart.” 

Saying it out loud makes it feel more real, less like a fever dream, less like something Mingyu made up to affirm his self hatred. Seungkwan always was one for using his words. That was always the scariest part. 

Seokmin inhales like he’s tired, like this is a conversation he’s been a part of before. “He says that a lot.”

Mingyu is reminded, inexplicably, of the first time he’d kissed Seungkwan, worn out and sunburned in the trunk of his horrible car. 

_Your nose is peeling_ , Seungkwan had said. 

_Yeah?_ Mingyu’d responded. 

_I told you to wear sunscreen._

_Yeah, but you say that a lot._

Seungkwan had fussed over the aloe, had pushed Mingyu back on his heels and touched his cheeks with his fingertips. Mingyu remembers how it felt. He remembers what Seungkwan had said next-- _You can kiss me if you want to._

Like Mingyu could ever want anything else. 

Seungkwan got aloe in Mingyu’s hair and his neck was at an odd angle and the ocean screamed at the two of them, indignant, but god, it was worth it. 

Mingyu presses his fingers to his lips now-- the sensation can’t compare, it can’t and Mingyu thinks, selfishly, that it’s a shame Seokmin’s never kissed Seungkwan. Although, if he knew what it was like, maybe he would never want to stop, either. 

“So we can’t tell him,” Mingyu says finally. 

“No, we definitely can’t.”

\--

When Seungkwan finally makes it back to his car, he’s freshly showered and out of breath.

If Mingyu were himself, he would probably make a comment about how long he’d been waiting. But because he’s not himself, because he’s Seokmin and he doesn’t know how exactly to act, he doesn’t. 

“Sorry,” Seungkwan says as he unlocks the car and hops in the driver’s seat. “I wanted to run a few more drills.”

Something Mingyu picked up on, when they were still together, is what exactly it sounds like when Seungkwan lies. He says things casually, like they don’t matter, like they’re something to be skimmed over. He’s doing it now, scratching at his jaw line as he speaks, lying through his teeth. 

“Shua hyung said you were talking to Mingyu today,” Seungkwan says, his voice deceptively light. “I didn’t know you guys kept in touch.”

Part of that must be a lie, it must be, Mingyu just can’t figure out what. Regardless, maybe the broom closet idea had some merit.

“Yeah, um, ‘97 line,” Mingyu manages ineloquently. 

“Oh,” is all Seungkwan says.

Mingyu can tell he wants to say more, but he doesn’t, at least for the rest of the drive home. Nearly the whole time, though, he’s pressing his tongue to the inside of his cheek.

The moon is out in full force. Mingyu watches it as they pass building after building. In the silence it seems to be talking to him. _If you tell him_ , it says, _you can kiss him again._

Seungkwan only asks the question he’s clearly been dying to ask once they make it back upstairs, once Mingyu is laying down on the couch with a towel over his face. 

“So, what were you and Mingyu talking about?”

“Nothing,” Mingyu says. “Um, skating.”

Seungkwan always was able to see through him rather easily. “I don’t believe you.”

“My head hurts,” Mingyu blurts and that’s not a lie, exactly. _I don’t believe you, either,_ he doesn’t say.

He can’t see it, but he knows Seungkwan is making one of the faces he usually reserves for staring at opposing players across faceoff circles. He acquiesces, though, because he’s Seungkwan, because he cares so much it must hurt sometimes. 

“We’re not done talking about this,” Seungkwan says and it’s a promise, Mingyu can feel it in his voice. 

He sticks one thumb up in affirmation and promptly pretends to fall asleep. 

\--

before

Mingyu doesn’t know if he’d call it a _date,_ per se. But it’s something. 

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Seungkwan says, mouth only just peeking out from beneath his scarf, breath visible in the cold. 

The line for the haunted house inches forward and Seungkwan grabs onto Mingyu’s arm like a lifeline. Mingyu preens at the contact. 

“You’re such a baby,” Mingyu says, but there’s no heat behind it. “This one isn’t even that scary.”

“ _This one isn’t even that scary_ , he says,” Seungkwan mimics his tone of voice poorly, but it gives Mingyu a chance to pull Seungkwan closer under the guise of annoyance. He pinches one of Seungkwan’s cheeks with a freezing cold hand. 

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” Mingyu sing-songs. 

It’s nice, everything about having Seungkwan near is nice. Not that Mingyu would ever say that out loud. He’s so warm, and even in the cold Mingyu can feel him, radiant amidst the wind and frost. 

“I bet I won’t scream,” Seungkwan says as the attendant lets the couple in front of them in. “Five bucks.”

“You’re on,” Mingyu says.

It goes about as well as could be expected. Seungkwan grabs onto Mingyu so hard he probably left bruises in his wake, little crescent things all in a row. He hits Mingyu right in the arm at least once, though he blames it on one of the underpaid kids in clown makeup. 

Mingyu likes that Seungkwan can be silly and unguarded like this, can let himself look ridiculous for fun. Mingyu could never-- really the only times he embarrasses himself are when he’s doing something stupid _with_ Seungkwan. 

It would be so nice if this was what they were all the time. If Seungkwan could just touch him and understand, if Mingyu could reach over and graze Seungkwan’s cheek and let that be enough. 

Seungkwan screams because _of course he does._ And when they leave it’s all Mingyu can do to keep himself from saying, _see, you were wrong._

“You just made me go in there so I’d have to rely on you.” Seungkwan hits Mingyu on the arm again for no discernable reason. “What is this, middle school?”

He’s not actually mad, he’s just the kind of mad he gets when he thinks he’s made a fool of himself. Though, despite everything, he’s still holding onto Mingyu’s hand.

“If you wanted me to hold on to you, you could have just said so.” 

_If only it were that easy_ , Mingyu thinks.

“I’m not giving you five dollars,” Seungkwan says, pulling hard on the camera bag strap on Mingyu’s shoulder. “It was a privilege for you to have heard me scream.”

“Yeah?” Mingyu teases. 

Seungkwan levels him with a withering look. “Yeah.”

Wanting to kiss Seungkwan is just something Mingyu deals with all the time, now, though, it’s something unbearable.

They’re out past the rest of the crowd when Mingyu thinks to pull out his camera, stopping short behind a row of cars.

“Hey,” he calls out to Seungkwan, whose gait had not slowed in the interim. “Smile.”

Seungkwan makes a face instead. 

“Be serious,” Mingyu whines, framing Seungkwan in the viewfinder. 

“I am being serious,” Seungkwan lies. 

Despite the silly looks, Mingyu finds an angle where the moon hangs just above Seungkwan’s head-- showers him in its light. 

“Be serious,” Mingyu repeats. 

“You don’t need any pictures of me.”

“You don’t know _what_ I need.”

Seungkwan sighs, long suffering, and smiles.

Maybe it’s the proximity, or maybe it’s that there was something in the water earlier, or maybe it’s this feeling Mingyu’s had growing in his chest for months every time he looks at Seungkwan and Seungkwan looks back. But through the viewfinder, all Mingyu sees is red.

“You’re beautiful,” Mingyu says like it’s been ripped from his chest.

Seungkwan’s face does some funny things, then, and he just kind of stands there. 

“I think I love you,” Seungkwan says after a pause.

If Mingyu were smart, he might have said it then. If he weren’t so bad at this, he might have been able to make the sounds against the enamel of his teeth. Might have been able to take him home like it meant something.

Instead, he freezes, puts his camera back up, takes a picture. Looks on as the smile falls from Seungkwan’s face. 

In the end, it might have been better if he’d stopped looking.

\--

after

“Big game coming up,” Seokmin mentions offhandedly.

They’re standing by the entrance of the ice rink, Mingyu with one foot in the door and Seokmin with bags in his hands that aren’t his. 

“Oh?” Is what Mingyu chooses to say instead of _and what does that have to do with me?_

“I just thought. You used to come all the time, and since I can’t play, I figured maybe…” he trails off, leaving the rest unsaid.

The rest being _you’d want to keep me company._ The rest being _you’d want to sit and watch your ex boyfriend who doesn’t hate you skate up and down the ice and play a game you barely understand._

Mingyu wants to say no. He wants to. But he also kind of misses it. He had no one to go with, before, except for Soonyoung and maybe Minghao on an off day, and it’s not like they understood what was going on any better than him. 

Hockey isn’t really his sport. That’s not to say it isn’t fascinating. It’s kind of magnificent, Mingyu thinks, that hockey can make skating look like something so rough when it has the ability to be delicate. Mingyu has proof, at least, that hockey players can’t do what he does. Not that he could do what they do, either, but that’s not the point. 

Point is, Mingyu misses it like he misses most things he used to have when he had Seungkwan. 

So he goes. 

\--

“It’s the quarterfinals, so basically if we beat this team tonight then we advance to the semifinals and then onto the finals,” Seokmin explains, waving around an errant piece of chicken. 

“I know how rounds work,” Mingyu says, but Seokmin’s not really listening, or even talking to him actually. 

Soonyoung hums at everything Seokmin says and Mingyu knows he knows these things already, but Soonyoung’s got this look in his eye like he’s got an agenda. And every time he smiles Seokmin smiles in return. So there’s something. 

“I’m gonna go find our seats,” Mingyu says and Seokmin doesn’t even so much as look in his direction as he waves one limp hand in a _goodbye_. 

It’s not as crowded in the arena as Mingyu remembers it being, but maybe that’s just on account of him showing up early for once. It smells of stadium food and the cold. 

Mingyu can feel it, even walking through the tunnel-- how cold it is inside, how fresh the ice must be. 

Well, how fresh the ice _had_ been. Warmups have begun and both teams are skating circles in around their nets, drawing rough lines in the ice as they make their way around and around. 

Unfortunately, Mingyu did not prepare himself for the possibility Seungkwan would be able to spot him in the crowd. But there he is, red cheeked and resplendent in his helmet, staring right at Mingyu from center ice. 

Mingyu malfunctions, just for a moment. His body acts before his brain does, before he remembers they’re not _friends_ anymore-- he waves, a small half-aborted thing. 

Seungkwan presses his lips into a line. 

Mingyu could just die right there. 

\--

Seungkwan doesn’t look at him again. 

Not when Seokmin and Soonyoung arrive at their seats, not when he scores halfway through the second to even it up. 

Which is fine, he’s got other things to worry about. And god, does he really have a lot to worry about. According to Seokmin, their defense hasn’t looked this bad since the beginning of the year. Wonwoo lets in a few soft goals before he gets pulled in favor of Junhui, who doesn’t fare much better. 

Their offense, though, in Mingyu’s layman’s opinion, is a force to be reckoned with. When Chan skates up the center of the ice with Seungkwan on one side and Jihoon on the other, they’re something to be afraid of, something dazzling and resplendent, if only for a moment.

When the puck drops to start the third, Mingyu’s already on the edge of his seat. 

It’s a valiant effort. Every time Seungkwan hops on the ice, it’s like he’s there to take names.

He’s wearing all the faces Mingyu remembers he would wear. He’s chirping the opposing goalie with a glint in his eye. He looks _happy_ , happy in a way he hasn’t looked since Mingyu stumbled back into his life a few weeks ago and left again just as unceremoniously. 

Korea University’s hockey team loses 7-3 in the end. 

As the arena empties and both teams walk back to their locker rooms Seokmin looks at Mingyu for what feels like the first time all night and says, “Thanks for coming.”

“Anytime,” Mingyu responds. He doesn’t mean it.

\--

The last bus back to Mingyu’s place arrives in 5 minutes, so he speed walks toward the exit minutes after the final buzzer. 

He would have made it, he totally would have, had Seungkwan not stopped him in one of the tunnels, still dressed in his pads. 

It’s his shoes Mingyu sees first-- beat up navy things with too-long shoelaces. It’s like a dream almost; Mingyu looks up and there he is, sweaty and red faced. 

“What are you doing here?” Seungkwan asks. 

It’s a fair question. Mingyu flounders, opening his mouth only to close it again. 

Seungkwan doesn’t repeat himself. Doesn’t let Mingyu get away without answering.

“I wanted to see you,” he says finally, and it’s true. God, who was he kidding, why else would he come to a fucking hockey game?

The lines between Seungkwan’s eyebrows will soon become permanent, his frown deep-set into his face. It’s clear he doesn’t buy it, doesn’t believe much of anything Mingyu says and, really, Mingyu doesn’t blame him. But he does need to get home. 

“Sorry you lost,” Mingyu says and before, maybe, he might have joked his way out of this, or just kissed Seungkwan until he stopped looking so tired and defeated. “You looked great, though. You’re a fantastic skater.”

Seungkwan regards him, sweat-damp hair and all. He doesn’t say anything else. Just steps aside and lets Mingyu pass, finally. 

He misses his bus. 

Fifteen minutes into his Uber ride home, he gets a text. 

**FROM: Lee Seokmin (Hockey)**

Have you seen Seungkwan?

Chan said he left without his things and he’s not answering his phone. 

**TO: Lee Seokmin (Hockey)**

No. I haven’t.

Later, he gets another. 

**FROM: Boo**

Thanks.

Attached is a single image: the ice at the arena after the zamboni is done with it. 

Mingyu saves it, sends a text back. 

**TO: Boo**

Of course.

\--

He gets a few more texts after that, just little things-- sometimes Seungkwan will even send Mingyu pictures that make him feel like tearing his hair out because _what does all this even mean?_

He can’t parse the situation, can’t figure out where anything is going, if it’s going anywhere at all.

_Does this mean we’re friends again?_ He wants to text, but acknowledgement of the fact that there was a point when they were decidedly _not_ friends feels like it will shatter whatever spell Seungkwan must be under. 

Seungkwan texts him every other day and Mingyu feels like he’s at his wits end. 

Practice though, at least he has practice to keep him semi-sane. There’s his short program routine, which admittedly he’s not doing as great a job at as he’d like to. There’s Soonyoung and Jeonghan and Minghao and the ever-changing rotation of genre films they sit through on Friday nights. 

Mingyu does join them, sometimes, when he’s not at the rink keeping some poor zamboni driver from his wife. He’s at the rink most days, actually, running through things over and over until he gets them right. It’s not even about winning at this point, not really, because god knows he’s not prepared to _win._ It’s probably more about proving to himself that he can do it, still, can connect jump to jump, can bring his arms up to his chest and spin, can bring his feet to the ground and glide, carelessly, into nothing. 

Whenever the hockey team shares the ice with them, Mingyu can feel Seungkwan’s eyes on his back. He doesn’t look, he doesn’t, because he has to focus, because if he does then he’ll pull a muscle or trip on nothing or skate face first into the boards. 

He does look, though, and when he does, he thinks he sees smiles of encouragement, something so foreign on Seungkwan’s face now that it half-reads as pain. The timid thumbs-up helps clarify his meaning. 

Two weeks. Mingyu has two weeks to make sure he doesn’t fall flat on his face during his double lutz. Two weeks until he doesn’t have a reason to come to the rink anymore. 

\--

during

“There is no way there is this much to learn about plate tectonics,” Mingyu says as he hands Seokmin the notes he’d snagged from a particularly helpful classmate. 

“It’s really interesting, actually,” Seokmin insists. 

In return for the earth rock notes, Seokmin hands Mingyu the classwork he’d missed in economics. 

“Lucky Minghao’s in this class with you,” Seokmin says. “Otherwise I don’t think I’d have been able to get notes from _anyone_. They all seem so mean.”

Mingyu laughs, half-offended. “They’re just econ majors.”

“Gross.” Seokmin wrinkles his nose in mock-disgust. “Look, you’d better get back. You have class in 2 minutes.”

“Do I have to?” Mingyu whines. The thought of going to whatever awful science class Seokmin subjects himself to on a daily basis is suddenly too much for Mingyu to handle.

“You definitely have to,” Seungkwan says, materializing seemingly out of nowhere. “If I have to go, so do you.”

Mingyu freezes up like this is Jurassic Park and he’s just been spotted by a T-Rex. Seokmin, on the other hand, does the unthinkable. He smiles right at Seungkwan. 

All the alarm bells meant for self-preservation that Mingyu has ever developed in his life go off right then and there. He grabs Seungkwan by the arm and pulls him down the hallway toward whatever god awful class they have next. 

“Did Mingyu just smile at me?” Seungkwan asks along the way, not putting up much of a fight at all. 

“You must be seeing things,” Mingyu says.

They make it into their lecture hall just as the professor begins his overview of what they’ll be going over today. He says something about _orbitals_ and maybe _levels_ but all Mingyu can really hear is his heart pounding in his ears. 

“No, Mingyu definitely smiled at me,” Seungkwan says. He’s got his notebook out already, somehow, and he’s looking at the board but he doesn’t look focused at all. “Why would he smile at me?” 

“Dunno,” Mingyu says. He bites at his pinky nail like it holds all the secrets to the universe. 

“That’s so weird,” Seungkwan mutters. “Was that not weird?”

“Maybe he’s still super concussed.” Now the nail on his index finger. 

“Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” Mingyu asks, teeth still making their way across his left hand. 

“Biting your nails!” Seungkwan pulls Mingyu’s hand away from his mouth. “Mingyu used to do it all the time and it drove me crazy.” 

Somehow, without knowing what it is he’s doing, Seungkwan takes another shot at Mingyu’s heart, aims right for his ventricles like he’s practiced at it, like cutting things off at the source is the whole point. 

“Oh,” Mingyu says. “Sorry.”

They leave it at that, for now. Seungkwan starts putting together the most detailed page of notes Mingyu has ever seen in his life and Mingyu just watches as he spins his pen between his fingers during breaks in writing. 

“You were talking to him again,” Seungkwan comments once the professor starts putting a practice problem up on the board.

“I was,” Mingyu says. 

Much is left unsaid. Namely _you know we’re going to have to talk about this, right?_

Mingyu prays silently for the ground to open up at his feet and swallow him whole. 

\--

before

Seungkwan puts the breaks on, hard, as he skates up to Mingyu, showering him in a wave of ice. 

“That hurt,” Mingyu says, holds his elbow like the snow held some sort of mass capable of inflicting harm. 

“It literally didn’t.” Seungkwan pulls on Mingyu’s arm to prove his point. 

Jeonghan is practicing his footwork on one end of the rink and Seungcheol is circling some cones in what Mingyu assumes must be a punishment for some transgression. 

Seungkwan looks up at Mingyu and beams. Mingyu might like him, just a little. 

It’s a month before Seungkwan lets himself be kissed, and another month still before Mingyu ruins everything. 

For now, Seungkwan pretends he doesn’t notice that Mingyu can’t stop looking at him. He skates in circles and plays games that Mingyu doesn’t understand and he smiles the whole time. Mingyu watches, because that is what he does best, and he aches. 

“You can’t be serious,” Seungkwan says after Mingyu’s declared that figure skating is the hardest thing one could possibly do on skates. 

Seungkwan stands close, just by Mingyu’s shoulder. Mingyu can feel his breath, warm, through his shirt. 

“I’m serious,” Mingyu says, because any chance to argue with Seungkwan is one Mingyu will take. “Look, try to do a spiral.”

Seungkwan looks up at him quizzically. “A spiral? Like one of those spins?”

“Oh, I thought figure skating was easy?”

“I never said that,” Seungkwan says. “I just meant it’s easier than hockey.”

“Then do a spiral.”

What follows is mostly Seungkwan trying and failing to do what he must believe to be a spiral but is actually just an upright spin. The longer he goes at is the huffier he gets and the harder Mingyu laughs. 

“Here,” Mingyu says finally, placing a hand on Seungkwan’s hip in an attempt to stop him from spinning himself in another pathetic looking circle. “Lift your left leg. Good, okay, now extend it back. Bring it up higher.”

Seungkwan follows instructions well for someone who generally fights Mingyu on every single word out of his mouth. He does not, however, have the capacity to bring his leg up higher than his hip. 

“Higher,” Mingyu says, holding Seungkwan’s leg in place to help him balance. 

“You can’t be serious.”

“Higher,” Mingyu repeats.

The look on Seungkwan’s face is one that Mingyu can’t get enough of, truly. Something between disappointed and pissed off. Mingyu grins in response. 

“Higher,” he says again. 

“That’s it,” Seungkwan says, pulling his extended leg forward with enough force to knock Mingyu off balance. “Why do you like messing with me so much? Is it fun to watch me struggle?”

Mingyu wants to tell the truth here, that he likes it because Seungkwan is cute, because he gets angry so easily, because he’s got too much room in his heart, because when Mingyu looks at Seungkwan and sees him looking back he thinks the mere fact that he is being observed might make him real, tangible in some way that matters. 

The short answer is _I like it because I like you_ . The long answer is _I like it because I think you might be able to see right through me, I like it because I think you might already know why I like it so much anyway. You make me feel a lot. Must I say it aloud?_

“Yes,” is all Mingyu says instead. 

Somehow, Seungkwan looks disappointed. 

\--

during

The amount of calculus Mingyu is having to do for what he thought was an arithmetic-centric major is honestly criminal. The fact that his professors are making him do it all without the assistance of his computer or phone has to be a violation of the Geneva convention. 

This is the scene Seungkwan walks in on when he comes home from practice: Seokmin sprawled out on the floor, surrounded by notes for a class he isn’t taking.

“Is everything alright?” Seungkwan asks instead of _what the fuck is going on?_ which is pretty polite of him.

“Yeah,” Mingyu responds, one hand tangled in his hair. “I just have a lot of, uh, tectonics homework.”

“You use calculus in tectonics?”

“Yeah, for the rocks.”

“Huh,” Seungkwan says. Then, after a pause, “I saw Mingyu today.”

Mingyu turns to drawing circles wildly in his notebook instead of solving problems. “You did?”

“He smiled at me again.”

_Fucking Seokmin_. “His concussion sounds like it was worse than mine.”

Seungkwan walks over and swats uselessly at Mingyu’s head. “It’s weird. I thought it would make me angry, but it just made me sad. Like, I don’t even know what I’d do if he started talking to me again.”

Mingyu can feel a dull ache begin in his hands. 

“I think you’d be fine.” 

Seungkwan scoffs. “Right, like you wouldn’t cry if you were me.”

If Mingyu could take it all back he would, if he could make it so they’d never met he would. “You shouldn’t cry over him.”

“Yeah, well, too late for that,” Seungkwan says, laughs like this is something they should both be well aware of. “I’m gonna go shower. Want anything in particular for dinner?”

Mingyu shakes his head. Even after Seungkwan’s gone, Mingyu can see his outline in his field of vision, like the aftermath of some ill-conceived staring contest with the sun. His after-image lingers, tells jokes that fall flat, becomes so desperate with the need for validation that it vanishes into thin air. 

Mingyu thinks he might be hallucinating.

Maybe the universe is making him live his worst nightmare to punish him for the hurt he has caused. Is that the purpose of all this? To make Mingyu feel even worse about himself than he already did? 

A supercut then: of Mingyu meeting Seungkwan for the first time, the two of them at opposite ends of an ice rink; of Seungkwan shooting pucks down the ice out of some misguided attempt to make nice; of Mingyu throwing them back; of the first time Seungkwan smiled at him, teeth and all, after he’d messed up a lutz; of the feelings, just the feelings, that Mingyu could never put into words. 

His phone rings, bringing Mingyu back into himself like a jumpstart. He answers it without thinking.

The ceiling of Seungkwan’s apartment is becoming dangerously familiar. It’s probably time for a change.

“Hyung?” comes Seungkwan’s voice from the other line.

“Mhm?” Mingyu answers. “Why’d you call?”

“Oh. I thought I called…” Seungkwan’s voice becomes distant. “No, I called Mingyu.”

Seungkwan comes out of his room, then, before Mingyu has even registered the mistake he’s made.

“Why do you have Mingyu’s phone?”

Mingyu freezes, still on the floor. From where he’s laying, Mingyu can only barely make out the look on Seungkwan’s face: something nearing betrayal. It’s like being pushed, head first, into a body of icy water. Like realizing your brakes have been cut. 

“I, uh,” is all Mingyu manages before Seungkwan is pulling the phone out of his hand forcefully. 

“Why do you have his phone? Why is his background a _picture of me?_ ”

Mingyu closes his eyes. The picture is one from the night Seungkwan stopped loving him; when he couldn’t say it back. 

“You’re my best friend,” Seungkwan says and his voice is teetering on hysterics. “If you liked him, you should have said something.”

If Mingyu were a worse person, he might let Seungkwan live with this particular brand of betrayal, let him live thinking his best friend slept with his ex. But he’s a good person. Or at least, he’s trying to be. 

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy,” Mingyu says finally. 

The look on Seungkwan’s face says _try me._

“You know how we both got concussions? It hasn’t been long just, since the concussion, I’ve been Seokmin, I mean, he’s been me,” he sighs, bone tired suddenly. “I, Kim Mingyu, have been Lee Seokmin and Lee Seokmin has been me.”

When Seungkwan doesn’t say anything, Mingyu continues. 

“So, that’s probably why I, I mean, he smiled at you today. I wouldn’t--”

“Wouldn’t what? Smile at me? Look at me? Is that not allowed?” Seungkwan’s voice is so much louder now, and a lot more resolute. 

He’s crying, still, and Mingyu wishes more than anything that he could reach out and fix this instead of making things worse with his words. 

“No, it’s, that’s allowed,” Mingyu says and he can feel himself getting worked up without his own permission, can feel everything he’s been trying to say getting stuck, like a log jam, at the back of his throat. “I can smile at you, see?” he says instead of _I’m sorry,_ his teeth coming together in a grimace.

Everything begins to come out in the wrong way, his emotions jumbling together in his stomach and coming out, together, as anger. 

“Fuck you. Why am I your phone background, what is _wrong_ with you?” 

“I don’t know.” Mingyu presses his thumbs into his eyes hard enough to see black. “I don’t know.”

“Was this fun for you? Was it fun to pretend to care?”

Seungkwan’s cheeks are red and blotchy already, he’s pulling at Mingyu’s arm to get him up off the floor and he’s so, so beautiful. 

“I do care,” Mingyu manages around what feels like a fistfull of thorns in his throat. “I always have.” 

“That is so _like you_ , Kim Mingyu,” Seungkwan says, his fists balled up into the back of Mingyu’s t-shirt. “You come back a year later just to say the right thing at the wrong time. You _infuriate me._ If you wanted me to hold on to you, you should have just _said so_.” 

Seungkwan pulls Mingyu toward the door.

It is in this moment of panic Mingyu opens his mouth and lets his voice rise, buoyantly, out of his chest.

“I’m bad at this,” Mingyu says and it’s like he’s possessed, like if he doesn’t say the words fast enough he’ll never get to say them. “Saying the things I feel is hard for me. Really, I, when you said you loved me, I should have said it back. And I’m not… that’s not an excuse, I know I hurt you. But I should have told you then. That I loved you.”

Seungkwan stops pulling then, and just starts trying to take in a deep breath.

“Get out,” he says. “Get _out._ I don’t want to see Seokmin, either. Have him come back when he’s _normal_.”

So, Mingyu goes.

For probably the second time in his life, Kim Mingyu gets a door slammed in his face. 

For probably the second time in his life, Kim Mingyu switches bodies with Lee Seokmin.

\--

before

“What kind of ice cream do you want?” Seungkwan asks, jostling Mingyu’s arm with his own as they stand in line on the street.

“Mmm, chocolate,” Mingyu responds. 

“Boooooring,” Seungkwan says.

“Oh, and strawberry’s less boring?” 

Seungkwan doesn’t deign to respond to Mingyu’s question with anything other than a knowing smile. Mingyu buys them both cones when Seungkwan’s not looking, sliding the money over to the attendant discreetly. 

“You infuriate me,” Seungkwan says, playing at exasperated but landing somewhere near pleased. He’s holding his wallet in one hand and his cone in the other.

“Eat your ice cream,” Mingyu says. 

He doesn’t look at the brilliant smile Seungkwan sends in his direction. He doesn’t look, because he thinks if he did he might die, he might really, actually die. 

“Thanks,” Seungkwan says. “You’re sweet.”

He ends up stealing some of Mingyu’s ice cream anyway and Mingyu feels it in his chest as something he lacks the words for begins to grow. 

\--

after

Three days before championships, Mingyu sees Seungkwan at the rink. 

It’s 5:30 in the morning and Mingyu should be alone. But he’s not. And there’s all this ice between them.

It would be easy, Mingyu thinks, to skate his way over to where Seungkwan is standing, to take a knife to his own heart, to bleed for it. 

Seungkwan beats him to the punch. 

“You loved me,” Seungkwan says, still too far away for Mingyu to make out the shape of his lips as the words trip off them but close enough so that Mingyu can see his eyes. 

Mingyu doesn’t say anything because he’s still working on it. 

“It’s okay if you didn’t. I just wish I didn’t care so much,” Seungkwan says and he’s still so far away. “It would be so easy if I didn’t care about you.”

Mingyu knows the feeling. He looks, though, now, and he skates closer because he can and because he wants to and because Seungkwan isn’t backing away. 

Up close, Seungkwan looks far more timid than Mingyu can ever remember him being. 

“Why do you make me feel like this?” Seungkwan shakes his head. His skates aren’t even tied. “Like I’m stupid. Or like I’m insane for thinking you might still care.”

Must he say it? Must he open his mouth? Is it not enough that he can reach out and lift the helmet off Seungkwan’s head? Is it not enough that he can take his fingers and use them to tuck Seungkwan’s hair behind his ear?

“If you don’t say something I really think I might scream.”

It’s probably high time for Mingyu to be brave. 

“I care. You’re not crazy,” he says. “When you… When I messed things up, I think I left a part of myself with you, like something essential. And I think about you all the time and it’s stifling and you just, you look at me like, god. I thought you didn’t feel it, but you do, I know you do now.”

And Seungkwan, for his part, is speechless. Like the wind’s been knocked out of him. He looks kind of like he did that day after the haunted house, hopeful and alight with the air before Mingyu ruined things by letting himself stay silent. 

“I’m so dumb,” Seungkwan says, laughs, skates back a few feet. “If I hadn’t said anything, we’d still be together.”

“No, you’re, you’re not dumb.” Mingyu wants to pull Seungkwan back toward him but he can’t, he can feel that it would be the wrong thing to do. “You were okay to want that from me, you deserved that from me. I just panicked, I wanted to say it back.”

“So say it.”

“I love you. Present tense. It’s something I’m dealing with.”

Seungkwan’s gotten what he wanted, finally, a year and some change late. He’s right to leave when he does. 

Mingyu skates through his short program eight times before class. He’s felt this heartbreak once before. He’s dealing with it.

\--

before

Seungkwan is annoyed, it shows in the way he holds his shoulders, in the way he looks at Mingyu at stop lights. 

“If you don’t stop playing Green Day I might actually have to kill you,” he says, lips pursed just so. 

“What’s that?” Mingyu asks, turning the dial on Seungkwan’s radio up. 

“If I weren’t a good person, I would absolutely wreck the car right now.”

Seungkwan is so pretty like this: outlined in the setting sun, driving to nowhere in particular, annoyed like he really only gets when Mingyu’s around. 

Mingyu pulls out his camera. Wants to remember this forever. 

\--

after

Mingyu’s on in two minutes and he kind of feels like he might throw up. 

Jeonghan is behind him, rubbing his shoulder like that’s something he needs right now. It’s not like there’s even that many people here right now it’s just… Mingyu needs to do this, for himself if not for anyone else. 

“Don’t look now,” Jeonghan says and out of the corner of his eye, Mingyu can see Minghao shaking his head violently. “But I think Seungkwan is here.”

_Ah. Fuck._

If Mingyu looked for him, he’s pretty sure he’d be able to spot Seungkwan in the crowd no problem. But if the knowledge is making him feel off-kilter, he can’t even imagine what the sight would do to him. 

Probably kill him. Probably. 

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Jeonghan says, pushing Mingyu unceremoniously towards the rink door. 

As he’s stepping on the ice, Mingyu thinks he hears _not you, Soonyoung._

Mingyu is okay. He is so totally fine. He’s so completely cool. His ex is going to watch him do his short program for some dinky collegiate figure skating championship. And Mingyu is going to fucking kill it. 

As the music starts, he’s never been more sure of anything in his life. 

\--

He fucking kills it. He fucking medals. Bronze, but _still_. 

The rest of the competition is kind of a blur. There’s the ceremony and maybe some more skating but Mingyu’s absolutely gone with the giddiness of victory. 

“You didn’t get gold or anything,” Jeonghan reminds him, definitely more than a little annoyed. 

“Yeah, but I _medalled,_ ” Mingyu responds. 

Jeoghan’s eye roll is inevitable. 

“I think you have someone waiting for you by the stairs,” Soonyoung says as he enters the dressing room, Seokmin in tow. 

Seokmin waves, at least. 

“Do I have to say it again?” Jeonghan asks. He’s half out of his leotard and he looks so, so tired. Mingyu nods just to be annoying. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

\--

Seungkwan really is there, standing at the top of the stairs that lead into the male dressing room. 

He’s there and he’s breathing and he’s got flowers. 

He hands them to Mingyu awkwardly. “Congratulations on the medal,” he says. 

“Thanks,” Mingyu says. 

Seungkwan manages to look everywhere but at Mingyu. “I had to drive like 45 minutes to get here. That’s ridiculous.”

“You need to be reimbursed?”

That, finally, shocks Seungkwan into looking at Mingyu dead on. “No! No,” he says, initially panicked and then definitely something closer to annoyed once he realizes Mingyu is joking. “You’re the worst.”

“Do I _infuriate_ you?” Mingyu asks. 

“Yes, god.” The exasperation in Seungkwan’s voice is palpable. “Just take your flowers and go.”

Mingyu is brave, he knows what it is to grow. 

“You should stay,” he says. “Come hang out with everyone. If you want.”

Seungkwan smiles, then, like Mingyu hasn’t seen him smile in months. And it really was for a lack of looking; Seungkwan has always been this bright.

“Your spirals looked really good, hyung,” Seungkwan says. 

“Shut _up_ ,” Mingyu says and it was really only a matter of time before the low thrumming in Mingyu’s chest became something unbearable. 

Seungkwan looks at him, then. And Mingyu looks right back. 

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on twitter @xyxxcs if u like boogyu and/or hockey or on tumblr @clubhockey
> 
> huuuge thanks to bryn triggerswaggiehavoc for reading over this for me and telling me to calm down with all the dashes and ellipses. thanks also to kat for being my best friend and telling me i dont suck at this
> 
> thanks for reading!!!! i wanted to be able to post this before i begin law school literally tomorrow so id have some spare serotonin to carry me thro the first week. not to be emotional but svt really got me thro undergrad huh....... 
> 
> comments n kudos highly HIGHLY appreciated . i will in fact marry you if u supply me with both


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